Having rizz is making someone fall for you, said Beryl and her little sister Marigold, 9.—Sakshi Venkatraman, NBC News, 10 Aug. 2024
Rizz, shorthand for “charisma,” is one of the most dynamic new slang words from the Gen Z lexicon. It’s often used as a verb: You can create rizz by rizzing people. The most adept wielders of rizz are known as “rizzlers.” These are people with high charisma and an ability to attract others.
There’s a romantic connotation - or at least a pick-up artist connotation - to rizzlers a lot of the time. But, recently reading Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince (1532), I couldn’t help but think about rizzlers throughout the ages. Machiavelli’s sociopath satire is often delivered in a tone that reminds me of viral self-help videos from modern figures like Andrew Tate and others when they address an aspirational audience of amorphous asocial anti anti-heroes.
Is to be Machiavellian to be a rizzler? Is the philosophy of princes the same as the philosophy of rizz? Let’s find out by reviewing ten different lessons, in updated rizz-friendly language, from Machiavelli himself.
1. Your Comfort Zone is an Easy Win.
There are fewer difficulties in holding hereditary states, and those long accustomed to the family of their prince, than new ones; for it is sufficient only not to transfer the customs of his ancestors, and to deal prudently with circumstances as they arise, of a prince of average powers to maintain himself in his state, unless he be deprived of it by some extraordinary and excessive force; and if he should be so deprived of it, whenever anything sinister happens to the usurp, he will regain it.
- Chapter II, Concerning Hereditary Principalities
If victory for you is to win the things you know, among the people you know, you’re living life on easy mode. To validate yourself among the people that have known you forever, you don’t even have to be great - you just have to be “a prince of average powers.”
2. The Remote are Always Restless.
A prince does not spend much on colonies, for with little or no expense he can send them out and keep them there, and he offends a minority only of the citizens from whom he takes lands and houses to give them other new inhabitants; and those whom he offends, remaining poor and scattered, are never able to injure him; whilst the rest being uninjured are easily kept quiet, and at the same time are anxious not to err for fear it should happen to them as it has to those who have been despoiled.
-Chapter III, Concerning Mixed principalities
A “mixed principality” in Machiavelli’s view is a state split by different loyalties. Some of the state is loyal to your cause and the rest is loyal to another cause. When you try and take over something, it’s inevitable that all the other causes within the state will be restless. There is no way to replace the memory of an old cause with something new: the best bet is to just not spend much on these colonies of memory.
No matter what you tell yourself, the “remaining poor and scattered” of the old causes will always resent the new.
3. Don’t Be a Know-it-All.
The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men always do so when they can, and for this they will be praised not blamed; but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, then there is folly and blame.
-Chapter III, Concerning Mixed principalities
Don’t feel bad about wanting to know stuff. Machiavelli thinks the quest for knowledge is pretty awesome. As long as you know your lane. Don’t pretend to be good at stuff or pretend to know stuff when you don’t. That’s how you end up full of “folly and blame.”
You look dumb by acting too smart.
4. To be a Hype Man (or Woman) is a One-Way Street.
A general rule is drawn which never or rarely fails: that he who is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined; because that predominancy has been brought about rather by astuteness or else by force, and both are distrusted by him who has been raised to power.
Chapter V, Concerning the way to govern cities or principalities which lived under their own laws before they were annexed
When you help someone achieve power, they don’t remember the journey or who helped them along the way. Whether you schemed to make it happen or pushed the hype that made it happen, Machiavelli warns that you're doomed to be “distrusted by him who has been raised to power.”
Don’t forget to hype yourself when you’re hyping someone else.
5. You Have to Destroy the Old to Find the New.
And he who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it, for in rebellion it has always the watchword of liberty and its ancient privileges as a rallying point, which neither time nor benefits will ever cause it to forget. And whatever you may do or provide against, they never forget that name.
- Chapter VI, Concerning new principalities which are acquired by ones owns arms and ability
You can’t erase the past by waiting for time to heal the wound or trying to cover up old pain with new feelings. An old memory is just a word away from rising up again when the name is never forgotten.
The person who tries to master the beliefs and memories and feelings “accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may be expect to be destroyed by it.” Want to get over something? Forget it completely. Forget it until it’s gone.
That’s Machiavellian forgiveness.
6. The Imitation of Greatness = Greatness.
A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it.
- Chapter VI, Concerning new principalities which are acquired by ones owns arms and ability
Trying to be a disruptor? Forget it. A disruptor is more likely to be a dumbruptor, according to Machiavelli.
In The Prince, he tells readers that they shouldn’t bother following the path less taken. Just take the path “beaten by great men.” When you follow the tried and truth trail to the truth, you’re more likely to find something at the end of it. Even if you’re not as great as the people who went before you, even if your “ability does not equal theirs,” you will at least imitate that greatness in your journey. The path you take will lead you somewhere that at least “will savour of it.”
By trying to follow some greatness that came before, you might just find your own.
7. Life is Luck - and, Actually, Because You’re Awesome.
And in examining their actions and lives one cannot see that they owed anything to fortune beyond opportunity, which brought them the material to mould into the form which seemed best to them. Without that opportunity their powers of mind would have been extinguished, and without those powers the opportunity would have come in vain.
- Chapter VI, Concerning new principalities which are acquired by ones owns arms and ability
When you’re reflecting on life, it’s hard to give any credit to luck. Or, if you’re a specific kind of self-hating person, it’s too easy to give all the credit to luck instead of anything you specifically did.
Machiavelli disagrees with both views. He thinks that to become anything great, people are lucky. But the greatness within them is what turns that luck into a life. It’s luck that kicks things off: without the opportunity appearing, your “powers of mind would have been extinguished. But there has to be something inside your mind that let’s you see the opportunity and make the most of it, because “without those powers the opportunity would have come in vain.”
8. Innovation Always Starts with Proof.
It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
- Chapter VI, Concerning new principalities which are acquired by ones owns arms and ability
If you’re trying to do something truly new in the world, Machiavelli sympathizes. “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand… than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things,” he says.
“The innovator” is enemies with “all those who have done well under the old conditions.” Not only that, even the direct enemies aren’t sure about the new order. Machiavelli describes them as “lukewarm defenders” at best.
You can’t expect everyone to accept everything new all at once. And the first people who want to believe you are waiting for proof. To really build something new, you have to show an early win first.
9. Don’t Mess with Someone’s Sense of Self.
“When neither their property nor hopnour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the abmition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways.”
- Chapter XIX, That one should avoid being despised and hatedy
Want to make a good name for yourself? Don’t mess with anyone’s property or honor. Let people keep their sense of self and what’s important to them and “the majority of men live content.”
When almost everyone is content, you only have to “contend with the ambition of a few.” The ambitious few who are looking to mess with your own property and honor. Or, if you’re in business, your position.
10. Not Sticking to Your Decision is Lame.
It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from which all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavor to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortune; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgements are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceives him or to get round him.
- Chapter XIX, That one should avoid being despised and hated
Want to be truly princely? Guard yourself from any feelings of indecision like “a rock,” Machiavelli says. Everything you do needs to be done with not just intention, but irrevocable intention. You are here to write the present and publish the future. Leave the editing to the people who follow. Even in “private dealings,” you need to show that your “judgements are irrevocable” to maintain “such a reputation” that you can’t be deceived or tricked.
Live true to yourself, and your word, and don’t look back. Because it looks lame.
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What do you think? Is Machiavelli the original rizzler or at least a guru to said rizzlers? Is it weird that the English translation used the word “innovator” at one point? Was Machiavelli writing a satire or a real political philosophy?
Whatever your conclusion, it’s an interesting exercise to apply Gen Z terminology to older books. And it’s high time for us to do it. Otherwise, how will we even entice young people to read, anyway? None of them do.
⚠️ Great Prose Alert ⚠️ on "address an aspirational audience of amorphous asocial anti anti-heroes." Love when you work alliteration like a speedbag.
I suspect your efforts to entrap Gen Z in the great works of the Western Canon with rizz-centric slang will be received as pandering, but in case you're onto something, allow me to follow suit in reviewing: this piece had some bussn nuggets of wisdom, Sigma. On god no cap. Your gift for pull quotes evinced a true God Tier, secure-the-bag grindset. It's giving hard work and insight. You truly ate, and left no crumbs 👏👏👏
Great Job Blaise!
This is a nice blend of the old and new and an excellent interpretation. I understand (from an in house expert) that The Prince was intended as a real political philosophy dedicated to Lorenzo De Medici. This post reminds me of your post "Digitally Remastered Classics" which led to some household discussion and always stuck in my head. Very interesting and enjoyable.
Just a note: The last time that I was in the local book store I mentioned how I liked Leif Enger's latest book and to my surprise the very young sales clerk had just read it and loved it. So here we are generations apart discussing the same book. There is hope yet.